Sturgill Simpson – Club Dada, Dallas TX 11/15/14 (SHOW REVIEW)

As someone who attends concerts on a regular basis, it can become fairly easy to lose inspiration or to simply slog through the evening’s proceedings with a bit of ho-hum nonchalance. The spectacle of live music is usually enthralling and it’s a joyful highlight to be able to check out bands and artists from across the wide-ranging musical spectrum. It’s just that occasionally, shows can lack inspiration and easily pass by without making a lasting impression. Every once in a while, it’s good to be present at a show that, for one reason or another, is an event and serves as a memorable episode. Saturday night’s appearance by rising star Sturgill Simpson at Dallas’ tiny Club Dada proved to be just one of those events; that rare night that won’t be soon forgotten.

If you’ve been paying attention this year, it’s been difficult to miss Sturgill Simpson. As a mid-30’s, married father from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Simpson hardly fits the bill as someone the music industry would pay attention to, but nevertheless here he is, being posited as a country music “savior” by the always hyperbolic Rolling Stone, and unable to escape the barrage of Outlaw Country torch-bearing gestures bestowed on him by countless other media outlets. His most recent album, the most-excellent, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music is in fact, a country album, but in stark contrast to the polished sheen of contemporary Nashville, finds Simpson trafficking his rustic tunes in a haze of shaggy psychedelia that more often than not gets an artist banned from country charts rather than embraced by it. But, surprisingly, his album is charting, his band is gracing the stages of just about every late-night talk show stage, and his work is being recognized by the Americana Music Association. Smartly, Simpson has ignored the noise and has simply hit the road, where he and his band are being greeted by enthusiastic and adoring crowds that are cramming into venues that already seem too small for the party.

Such was the occasion Saturday night at Club Dada, where North Texas’ first sustained cold snap of the season forced the show to be moved from the more expansive back outdoor patio to the tightly capped indoor stage.  To make up for the capacity crunch, and to accommodate the overwhelming demand for tickets, the promoters turned things into a two-show affair, with an early show at 9pm and a later one that kicked off at Midnight. Having missed this hastily announced change of plans, I showed up at 9:15 in medias res to a pretty chaotic scene: an assembled group of fans already queuing up for the late show in a line that snaked around the building’s perimeter, and a frantic staff attempting to keep things in control as cold rain made being outdoors a pretty miserable experience. Once inside, I scarcely had room to advance, as the crowd took up every possible space available and were already locked in to the man of the hour who was busy holding court onstage and expressing his fondness for this particularly vibrant crowd. “It’s been a weird year…I think the last time we played Dallas, there were about 16 people”, Simpson quipped.

And those were some of the only words we encountered from Simpson, who instead preferred to let his band and his lyrics do the talking over the course of the two 90-minute shows. Backed by a tight trio of musicians, Simpson and Co. worked their way through the majority of  Metamodern and 2013’s High Top Mountain, while also displaying a keen appreciation and understanding of the classic country music songbook. Scattered throughout both sets were sharply smart covers of Lefty Frizzell’s “I Never Go Around Mirrors”, Wille Nelson’s “Sad Songs and Waltzes”, and the Stanley Brothers’ “Medicine Springs”. And, since he’s having difficulty escaping the comparisons, he threw the critics a bone and played Waylon’s “Waymore Blues”, as well.

Musically, his backing band was locked in, and it will be hard pressed to come across a better lead guitar player than the Estonian-born Laur Joamets. An unlikely country sideman, Joamets outright stole the show on several occasions with his sharply deft Bakersfield-style pickings and a few, awe-inducing leads that brought the roof down. It’s not exaggerating to say that his guitar playing was some of the finest I’ve witnessed in years.

When not hollering up a storm or awkwardly blocking the sight lines by doing the obligatory concert thing with their phones, the audience stayed locked in for the duration of the show. Most everybody knew the songs, heartily singing along to each word of the verses (“Been waiting on an angel waitress to come and take my order” got just as strong of a sing-along as the more well-known lines did in his sorta-single “Living The Dream”), as well as the choruses. Despite the accommodating efforts of the two-show coordination, there were many of the same faces hanging around the stage for the late-night performance, an observation also cheekily remarked upon by Simpson. As someone who’s opened for Jason Isbell, Drive-By Truckers, and Zac Brown Band, Simpson pulls in a similar fan base. Throughout the night, shoulders were rubbed with the likes of amped-up frat guys (a couple of which who got way too enthusiastic pumping their fists to the questionably selected Skrillex song that served as Simpson’s stage-entering background music choice at the midnight show), grey-haired music lovers out for the rare occasion, and the bearded, bespectacled hipster aficionados silently nodding their heads in agreement and appreciation. At one point, there was even a little pushing and shoving taking place, which forced a security guard intervention and a sharply worded tongue lashing from Simpson himself.

This may be one of the last times, though, that Simpson will be afforded the chance to police his own fans’ behavior. As 2014 has been quite the year for him, it’s likely that his days of playing intimate and sticky-floored bars and clubs are over. His next tour itinerary should find him playing more cavernous spaces as both his songcraft and musicianship have won him the trust and adoration of legions of loyal fans and critics. Welcome to the big leagues, Sturgill

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